A&P, Waldbaum's Selling Seven Supermarkets To Big Y

Hundreds Could Face Layoffs

September 09, 2010|By EZRA SILK and JANICE PODSADA, esilk@courant.com

The struggling New Jersey grocery company that owns A&P and Waldbaum's has agreed to sell seven Connecticut supermarkets to a competitor, Big Y Foods, a transaction expected to cost hundreds of workers their jobs.

Among the seven stores is the Waldbaum's grocery store on North Main Street in West Hartford. The others are A&P stores in Middletown, Branford, East Haven, Mystic, Naugatuck and Old Lyme.

Big Y, based in Springfield, Mass., said it expects to close all seven stores in late October and reopen an unspecified number of them later as Big Y World Class Markets. The stores' pharmacies will remain open in the meantime.

The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., which owns A&P, Waldbaum's and other grocery brands, has seen high-level management turnover in the past year amid declining sales. Last month, the company said it would close 25 stores in five states, including Connecticut, as part of its attempted turnaround. It recently said it would close a Berlin A&P in October.

Neither Big Y nor A&P would discuss layoffs in Connecticut. Thomas Wilkinson, president of the United Food & Commercial Workers Union Local 317, which represents labor at 16 A&P stories in Connecticut, said about 800 people work at the seven stores involved in the sale and the store in Berlin.

Big Y has said employees at the seven stores involved in the new deal would be invited to apply for new jobs at the supermarkets that reopen. Big Y workers are not represented by unions.

"They didn't do a good job operating the stores, but shutting down the stores they're very good at," Wilkinson said, referring to A&P. "My concern is the casualties left behind. We're going to do what we can to place those people in jobs with the same pension and insurance and that's going to be a challenge because of the current economic situation."

Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. appointed a new chief executive, Sam Martin, in July, as it reported $116 million in operating losses for its first fiscal quarter. The 151-year old chain then had 429 supermarkets in eight states.

"These seven stores were clearly outside of our core markets and their sale was necessary," Martin said of the Connecticut stores in a statement Wednesday. "The company faces many difficult decisions over the next several months which are required to strengthen our foundation and improve our performance going forward."

As of 2009, Big Y owned 7.8 percent of the metro New Haven grocery market and 11.1 percent of the Hartford regional market, according to Market Scope, a guide to the grocery market. A&P held 2.6 percent of the New Haven market and 2.7 percent of the Hartford market last year.

The potential long-term closure of some of the A&P's follows the closing of all 18 Shaw's supermarkets in the state earlier this year, though most of those have been or will be reopened as Stop & Shops, ShopRites or PriceRites.

Wilkinson said he learned of the sale Tuesday and would shortly contact A&P to try to negotiate severance pay and other benefits for dismissed workers.

He said the union would like to organize workers at Big Y, but doubts that it could happen anytime soon.

"Would we like to see a local 371 at Big Y? Of course we would," he said. "But we can't just show up at Big Y and say the union is coming in. It's a process."

News of the sale buzzed throughout the Waldbaum's supermarket in West Hartford Thursday, where both customers and employees expressed disappointment.

Ida Ofstein, who has shopped at Waldbaum's since she moved to West Hartford from South Windsor four decades ago, reported Thursday that store employees were anxious about their circumstances.

"They're very depressed and upset," she said. "They're not sure if their going to have a job."

Most store employees declined to comment, saying they had been told not to speak with reporters.

"Everyone is concerned," said one employee, who declined to be identified. "We don't know what's going to happen. We're just as much in the dark as everyone else."

Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co.'s retail banners are A&P, Waldbaum's, The Food Emporium, Super Fresh, Pathmark and Food Basics. The company operates in eight states — Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia — and the District of Columbia. The company employs about 48,000 people.